The Myth of The Silent Cockpit below 10.
Talking over coffee the other day, friend of mine flying Airbus machines said a new SOP in his company required the PNF to call "Speed checked" every time the flaps and gear were operated and that it seemed like a running commentary as flaps extended. Added to this were more or less continuous flight deck verbal confirmations of practically each switch, each action until the cruise where even then SOP verbalisation rarely seemed to stop.
While it could be argued that many SOP are the result of lessons learned in past incidents or accidents, it does make you wonder when does all this inter-communication stop. Verbalisation of mode annunciations is all the go under the banner of mode situational awareness. This incurs more talking.
I wonder if the School of CRM/TEM at the University of Texas has ever thought of seriously researching the flight safety disadvantages or possible potential for over-reliance on constant verbalising?
The silent cockpit policy below 10,000 ft was established to minimise distraction caused by non-operational chatter between crew members. Although many airlines endorse the silent cockpit policy, it seems to me that the welcome and guarded silence it generated was soon filled with well meaning but often superfluous operational chatter. Nature abhors a vacuum and so chatter it has certainly become.
Assuming both pilots are qualified and competent at their job and they have eyes that see, why state the bleeding obvious in so many facets of flight deck scanning?
Are we training a breed of pilots who not only spend sometimes inordinate heads down time programming their computers - but are also adept at following often superfluous fly-by-mouth SOP rather like people that whistle in the dark to help with self confidence? Put another way; is it an over-kill when we see - or rather hear - more or less constant SOP verbalising of the visually obvious?